Dahaad's Gulshan Devaiah, Sohum Shah and Vijay Varma on playing their characters

Devi Lal Singh Kailash Parghi and Anand Swarnakar sit at three disparate points on the goodness barometer The first an honest police officer shunted to Mandawa for not accepting bribes the second a confused ambitious corrupt and mildly chauvinistic but willingtoevolve subinspector And the last a mildmannered Hindi professor with a sick mind and no moral compass You are able to plot their place basis how they view and treat women against a variegated backdrop of patriarchy and caste oppressionThe actors playing these menmdashGulshan Devaiah Sohum Shah and Vijay Varmamdashalso found themselves guided and controlled by women Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti are creators of Amazon Primersquos recent thriller Dahaad The pair is known to write male characters that women love and female characters who speak their mind Another woman Ruchika Oberoi joined Kagti as the showrsquos codirectorVarma who is rivetingly disturbing as a remorseless serial killer who traps and murders 29 women after promising them everlasting love much in the same way lsquoCyanide Mohanrsquo a primary school teacher from Karnataka did between 2004 and 2009 says the hardest part was to come on board with his character ldquoI have been raised by women and have great respect and love for themrdquo says Varma ldquoMy mom Kanta supported me and my choices when no one believed in me She my sister Shobha and my three nieces are my biggest cheerleaders I have also worked with female directors like Zoya Reema Kagti and Nandita Das who have shaped me as an actor I had no idea how to orient myself with these manipulative feelings Reema guided me She explained that my character had deep issues with how his father had treated his mother but somehow ends up adopting the same behaviour despite being scarred by his atrocities I didnrsquot dwell much on it and tried to disconnect Anand also doesnrsquot let his feelings show so I was able to hide behind that character traitrdquoHe says that being on a set helmed by powerful women who donrsquot quite care to preserve societal structures helped him see that two realities exist in Indiamdashthe woman who can take her own decisions and those who cannot even if they desireUnlike Varma Shah says he was able to find similarities between his own person and the character ldquoMy journey is very similar to Parghirsquosrdquo Shah admits Like the newly married Rajasthani police officer Shah also comes from the small town of Ganganagar ldquoI come from a conservative family If the women in my home my sisterseven so much as stood on the entrance of our home Irsquod be naturally tuned to ask them to step inside This despite that I was younger to them Society isnrsquot favourable to gender equality and boys on the street would gawk at them Itrsquos only after my stay in Mumbai meeting a variety of people working with women and experiencing the birth of my own daughter that I have become progressive I now feel different although I still get livid at the very thought of someone touching my daughterrdquoDevaiah interestingly was surprised when he was told that Devi Lal Singh encouraged his wife to keep a open mind about handing their teenage daughterrsquos freedom He attributes this to stereotypes we harbour about small town residents ldquoWe tend to paint them in a broad stroke get judgmental Devi Lal shatters this idea He comes from a socioeconomic background that probably didnrsquot allow him to be highly educated or exposed to contemporary ideas But he is a good guy doing the right thing He also wants to do the right thing for his daughterrdquo the actor says Like Shah Devaiah feels that itrsquos because Devi Lal plays father to a teenage girl that he is softer and wants to be a better man ldquoAt home Devi is a father not a cop If you look at Sohamrsquos character he carries the guilt of not being an upright man He is not bad at heart but he is greedy And thatrsquos exactly why he struggles to accept that he is about to bring a child into the world a world where he too is not always doing the right thingrdquoDevaiah who in the series urges his wife to be ldquomodernrdquo like his colleague and subinspector Anjali Bhaati Sonakshi Sinha points out that itrsquos not just the men who are flawed Bhaati has a deeply problematic relationship with her mother Jayati Bhatia and her eagerness to see her married Her backward class lineage is a corpse she carries ldquoShe is obsessed with proving herself which is a fault because it gives her a tunnel vision She is disrespectful of her mother takes advantage of the leeway her boss offers her We viewers want her to win in the end of course but we cannot deny that she goes around breaking the law Caste and gender politics feature prominently here but in the end we are all just human beings trying to deal with situationsrdquo he thinksThe answer to the million dollar questionmdashhow is a timid shortonlooks teacher able to lure dozens of women to abandon their familiesmdashlies in the glaring inequality of sexes that continues to permeate everyday life in much of India Exhausted with the rejection that comes with not being able to pay dowry and overshooting marriageable age they chase an impossible dream of finding selfless love ldquoMaybe some people who watch the show will say this is not good letrsquos change this about ourselvesrdquo Shah hopes Varma had come away being more empathetic to the other sex ldquoFor me kindness is paramount The story points at how this is lacking in some people When a piece of art can instill empathy in the audience thatrsquos the best part When I took on this role I thought about how this story would serve us That offered me motivation Sometimes you may be uncomfortable with the issue you are shining a light on but itrsquos important to do itrdquo